Diary of a Genius

A seminal surrealist text, revealing the astonishing and intimate workings of the mind of Salvador Dali, the eccentric polymath genius who became the living embodiment of the 20th century's most subversive, disturbing and influential art movement. This second volume of Dali's autobiography covers his life from 1952 to 1963, the time of amour fou for his wife Gala and their bizarre world travels. This is Dali's "rhinocerontic" period, and he preaches post-holocaustal gospels of nuclear mysticism and cosmogenic atavism leading to his painting of the Assumption and his film script, The Flesh Wheelbarrow. This new, expanded edition includes a brilliant revelatory essay on the importance of Dali's art to the 20th century by the seminal author J G Ballard. Illustrated throughout.

The only edition to buy. -- The London Times

Dali's paintings reveal in the most powerful form the basic elements of the Surrealist imagination: a series of equations for dealing with the extraordinary transformations of our age. Let us salute this unique genius. -- J G Ballard